consanguinity

Guido Alberto Gnecchi-Ruscone, first author of the study, adds: "These practices, together with the absence of genetic consanguinity, indicate that the society maintained a detailed memory of its ancestry and knew who its biological relatives were over generations."

The findings, now published in Genetics in Medicine OPEN, revealed a correlation between occurrences of complex genetic disorders in those families with increased levels of consanguinity when compared to unaffected populations.

Consanguinity is when both parents contribute similar genetic markers to an offspring, such as by sharing a common ancestor, and the genetic information from both the genome inherited from the father and that from the mother are identical.

"We observed that the areas on the chromosome known as ROH, regions of homozygosity, were longer in those individuals in which there was a higher degree of parental consanguinity when compared to those with less," said Dr. Zeynep Coban-Akdemir, postdoctoral associate in molecular and human genetics at Baylor and currently assistant professor at UTHealth School of Public Health as well as co-lead author on the study.

"We can see what is happening when consanguinity is at play and also when new genetic variations are introduced into the family unit of the clan or tribe representing more distant ancestors."